


Remember How To Play

by Ningikuga



Category: Atop the Fourth Wall
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Gratuitous Board Game References, Mostly Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:58:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7445164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ningikuga/pseuds/Ningikuga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Linkara discovers one of Linksano's secret passions, and the team has a bonding experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember How To Play

**Author's Note:**

> For [this prompt](http://tgwtg-meme.livejournal.com/1329.html?thread=1563185#t1563185). I know fluffy team fic is not what y'all expect from me, but here it is.

It didn’t happen all that often, but the little blue light pinging away on Comicron-1’s primary sensor console meant that Nimue had found an announcement of a garage sale with a probability greater than 50% of having classic comics of one sort or another. This one was actually walking distance from the apartment.

Linkara wasn’t exactly sure how that had translated to six of them walking there. He suspected that Harvey and Pollo had each designated themselves his bodyguard for the day, but that didn’t explain why ‘90s Kid, Linksano, and Eliza had tagged along. At least Linksano had remembered at the last minute to hold Eliza’s wire on the way there; they were getting some odd looks on the sidewalk, but no one appeared to be calling the authorities.

“Just - nobody shoot anything, okay?” Linkara reminded his motley crew as they approached the overflowing yard festooned with balloons.

Everyone except ‘90s Kid rolled their eyes and nodded. ‘90s Kid managed to look both sad and contrite as he mumbled, “Sure.”

It quickly became clear that this wasn’t just a garage sale; the collected detritus of several childhoods was spread on tables throughout the yard. An entire half of the driveway was given over to makeshift racks of clothing, including a broad selection of band logo t-shirts that ‘90s Kid dove into with glee. One long table was piled with CDs on one end, cassettes in the middle, and three milk crates of vinyl at the other; Harvey found himself flipping through those. Eliza busied herself poking through four large boxes of action figures. Pollo did the same with a small filing cabinet filled with 3.5” floppies.

And one card table groaned under the weight of several longboxes of comics, some bagged, some just tossed in. Linkara flipped through the first box. At least they were in roughly chronological order. Most of what he was seeing was stuff from the big two publishers that was still fairly easy to find, mixed in with the odd Spawn comic. As he kept flipping, there was less DC and more Image, especially as the dates on the covers hit the ‘90s. Ugh, and there was the art shift to match.

He was somewhere in the late ‘80s and starting to hit some unusual indie black-and-white comics that might make decent review fodder when an elderly man tottered over to the table. “Finding anything good?” he asked.

“Maybe,” Linkara answered vaguely. Explaining that he wasn’t actually looking for ‘good’ might be confusing, and possibly insulting if he found anything. “This is a pretty big collection,” he continued, trying to deflect without being rude.

“Our oldest son collected those the longest,” the old man explained. “When he went off to college, he left them to our youngest, but Billy was only six, so our girl, Stacy, took care of them for a while. She liked the dead detective guy. Most of those were hers.”

Linkara frowned lightly. “None of them want them anymore?” he asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

“Paul doesn’t,” the old man sighed. “He always felt that childish things were best left at home. Stacy might, but she’s living in a tiny studio apartment and barely has enough room for the necessities. Worse, she doesn’t visit much anymore. And Billy . . . .” He trailed off and squinted vaguely at ‘90s Kid, who was holding one of the t-shirts and expounding on the virtues of the Smashing Pumpkins to Pollo. “Well, he just took a wrong turn in life, I guess you’d say. We can’t send them to him in prison, and we can’t afford to keep the house with just the two of us living here, so they’ve got to go.”

Flinching, Linkara murmured, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

The old man shrugged. “Things don’t always turn out like you expect,” he noted. “Sometimes, the people you think are angels turn out to have a little bit of devil in them. And sometimes?” He glanced at the clothing racks again; Linkara realized that all the girls’ clothes ran to the gothic. “Sometimes what looks devilish at first turns out to be your sweetest angel, and you wish you could take everything back,” the old man finished. “Let me know if you need any help.” He wandered back into the shade of the garage.

Linkara fished out a few promising rip-offs of a popular tortoise foursome from the last box and went to round up the rest of the crew. ‘90s Kid hadn’t moved; Linkara inserted himself into the torrent of words he was spewing at Pollo. “Find anything you want?” he asked.

‘90s Kid held up a small handful of t-shirts in various stages of fading. “Dude, there’s some awesome stuff in here,” he chattered. “I wish I could have been at these concerts, man.”

Pollo looked up. “There are some interesting vintage video games over there,” he indicated with a nod, “but most of them require the original documentation for copy protection.”

“I’m sure you could find it on the Internet somewhere,” Linkara reminded him.

“True,” Pollo admitted, and he floated back towards the filing cabinet.

Eliza sidled up to them with something tucked under one leg. “I don’t know what my allowance is,” she said, “but I don’t think this is very expensive, either.”

Linkara picked it up. It was a small stuffed gecko about a quarter of her length, made of very shiny metallic polyester and filled with sand. “What do you want it for?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “Someone to talk to? I dunno, I just like it.”

“As long as Linksano doesn’t try bringing it to life, I guess,” Linkara sighed. “Where is he, anyway?”

“I dunno,” ‘90s Kid said unhelpfully. “Harvey’s still over at the music table.”

The crew ambled over to join Harvey, who had two LPs stuck under one arm and was considering a third. “Dude, find anything tubular?” ‘90s Kid asked before Linkara could say anything.

“Yeah, there’s some James Taylor in here in pretty good condition,” Harvey replied, holding up a copy of _One Man Dog_.

“Is that a copy of _Watermark_?” Eliza asked, looking up at the bottom of the stack.

Harvey flushed slightly. “Shut up, ‘Crying In My Sleep’ is a great song,” he muttered.

“No argument from me,” Eliza answered. “Garfunkel has one of the best ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ arrangements I’ve ever heard.”

“Speaking of Taylor, isn’t that the one that has the cover of ‘What A Wonderful World’ with him and Paul Simon on it?” ‘90s Kid asked, smiling. “My folks used to play that one as a lullaby for me.”

Harvey stared at the others, dumbfounded. Linkara chuckled, adding, “You guys can talk about the virtues of Sweet Baby James all you like. I need to figure out where Linksano went before something explodes.”

The grey trenchcoat was good camouflage for the deep shade of the garage. Linkara found Linksano at a bench at the back, poring over a stack of boxes. The titles were difficult to read in the dim light. The haphazard pile to one side contained a bunch of old classic board games - Monopoly, Scrabble, a chessboard, a backgammon set, even a classic Candyland. The pile in front of Linksano was about the same size. The copy of Mousetrap was, perhaps, predictable, and maybe the Trivial Pursuit box, but the others were not - Can’t Stop, what looked like it might be an original edition of Talisman, Girl Talk, an obviously well-used copy of Taboo, and Robo Rally.

“There’s a copy of the original _Gammarauders_ game over there,” Linksano said, pointing without looking at a box off to the side. “It’s not in great condition, but I thought you might be interested.”

“Um, thanks,” Linkara said. “Are you - is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Linksano said, still not looking at Linkara. “These are two dollars each. I want all of them.”

Linkara blinked. “All of them?”

“I’ll carry them,” Linksano assured him. “And I’ll store them in the lab. You won’t have to deal with them.”

Linkara started to ask why, then stopped himself. If Linksano wanted to tell him, he would. “All right,” he agreed. “No cheating and teleporting them back before we get home, though.”

“I won’t,” Linksano promised.

As they approached the elderly man at the table, cash in hand (except for Eliza and Pollo, who had handed their finds to ‘90s Kid and Harvey, respectively, with promises to pay them back later), Linkara laid down his handful of off-brand comics and murmured, “The dead detective is Spawn, in case you didn’t remember.”

“I thought it might be,” the old man said, counting the stack and handing Linkara his change.

Linkara inclined his head back towards the boxes. “It might be worth picking just those out and sending them to her. If she decides to buy the trade collections later, they’ll be much more expensive.”

The old man examined Linkara’s eyes for a moment. “Might do,” he said, glancing down again. “Might do.”

“Duuuude, Robo Rally is a radical game!” ‘90s Kid shouted. “We’ve gotta play that!”

“As soon as we can clear off enough space, I’d like that,” Linksano said, uncharacteristically quietly.

Linkara shrugged and grinned apologetically. “Sorry,” he said to the old man, “they’re a little excitable. I’ll get them out of your hair.”

\---

As soon as they got home, Harvey and ‘90s Kid both disappeared, Harvey to his room, ‘90s Kid to the utility room with laundry detergent in hand. Soon, the sounds of the rinse cycle and the warm tones of ‘70s vinyl vied for dominance.

Linksano had cleared the stack of unopened mail from the coffee table in the living room and was going through each box. Linkara paid no attention to him for the first thirty minutes or so, until he went to the kitchen to get a glass of water and realized the scientist was still at it. 

As Linkara watched from a safe distance, Linksano opened each box, removed the game board, looked for the instructions if they were in the box, looked for a PDF file of the instructions online if they were not, found the list of parts, and went through cataloging each game piece as he found it. As he took out each piece, he held it up to his goggles, turning it over as if he were inspecting it for damage, with a distant smile on his face. If any were missing or broken, he made a note and added it to the box before he went to the next one.

He’d saved Robo Rally for last, and while the box was still thick with dust (now marked with several sets of fingerprints), it seemed to be in the best condition, as if it had only been played once. Linksano was humming as he sorted the cards.

Linkara saw an opening and went for it. “That’s Phil Foglio’s artwork, isn’t it?” he said, stepping around the end of the sofa.

Linksano jumped, nearly dropping the cards, but recovered quickly. “Yes, it is,” he agreed. “The equivalent artist went by Gads in my universe, much more angular design sensibility; I think I actually prefer these. More in keeping with the gameplay.” He glanced at the box. “Just out of curiosity, did Richard Garfield start a collecting-card game craze in this universe, too?”

“He did!” Linkara settled onto the sofa. “You guys had Magic: the Gathering, too?”

“It was called Magic: the Arcane Arts in my universe, but yes,” Linksano mused. “It’s astonishing how close the parallels in pop culture between this universe and mine are.”

Linkara stared at the boxes on the coffee table. “So these are all things you used to play?” he hazarded a guess.

“Yes,” Linksano replied wistfully. “Me and my - my family. Well, not Girl Talk; we bought that so we’d have something to play with, erm, with our neighbors. That didn’t quite work out well, but it was memorable.” He propped his bare feet up on the edge of the sofa cushions and hugged his knees. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Maybe I’m just homesick.”

Linkara’s hands hovered for a moment, then tugged the Trivial Pursuit box towards him. “We used to play this when we were snowed in during the winter,” he offered. “My older brother usually beat me.”

Linksano offered him a weak smile. “Mine, too,” he whispered.

Making a quick decision, Linkara gestured at the rest of the stack. “Which one would be easiest for you to teach me how to play?”

Linksano’s face lit up. “This one,” he said, eagerly reaching for the Can’t Stop box. “It’s really a statistics game with dice; it used to be a paper-and-pencil game in the ‘70s, and then someone decided to market it commercially. And this one has most of its pieces; blue is short one, so just pick a different color.”

Ten minutes later, Linksano was rubbing his hands together and cackling. “You see how easily I can defeat you!” he screeched, turning towards the ceiling.

“Beating a mushy-headed human at a math game is simple enough,” Pollo said from beside the coffee table; he’d been kibbitzing through the last half of the game. “I think you’ll find that an opponent who can actually add might give you more of a challenge.”

“I just didn’t see him coming,” Linkara grumbled. “Three players this time?”

 “What are you guys yelling about?” Harvey grumbled, sticking his head out of the hallway.

‘90s Kid popped up behind him. “Don’t forget you’d promised we’d play Robo Rally!” he said, grinning. “That game is totally kickin’!”

“After the rematch,” Linkara agreed. “I need to defend my honor here!”

“By which me means suffering a second humiliating defeat by a different opponent,” Pollo sniffed. “Someone’s going to have to roll for me; I can’t pick up the dice.”

Eliza peered over the edge of the coffee table and shook her head. “It’s too late for coffee,” she said, “so how about if I make some cocoa?”

“Sounds great,” Linkara replied. “And after this game, we’ll try something everyone can join in on. But first, I have to get my revenge on these two for those remarks.”

The clatter and clamor of dice and laughter lasted well into the very merry night. It turned out that Pollo was unbeatable at Robo Rally, despite ‘90s Kid and Eliza teaming up to give him a tight game at the end. (Somehow this also ended up with Eliza riding on top of ‘90s Kid’s hat for a significant portion of the evening.) Harvey surprised everyone by cleaning up at Trivial Pursuit; Linksano’s lack of knowledge of sports in any universe, much less this one, cost him the victory. ‘90s Kid turned out to be much better at Taboo than anyone would have guessed. And Linksano actually got the contraption in Mousetrap to work correctly every time, despite one piece of plastic being missing.

Linkara helped him pack everything up after ‘90s Kid and Eliza had both begged off to get some sleep. “This was a lot of fun,” he said quietly. “Thanks for thinking of it.”

“No problem,” Linksano replied, smiling bashfully. “Thank you for indulging my childish nostalgia.”

“Comes with the territory,” Linkara shrugged. “And if you ever want to put together a game night for the crew, let me know. We’ve been short on that ever since Liz left, and I think it might be good for us, just to blow off steam every once in a while.”

“I’ll check the calendar and think about it,” Linksano promised.

Linkara gently put one hand on Linksano’s shoulder. “And - thanks for being part of the team,” he murmured. “It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

It was difficult to say what Linksano was doing, with the goggles blocking his eyes, but Linkara felt like he was being stared at. After a long moment, Linksano set down the box in his hands and gave Linkara’s arm a tentative squeeze. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Linkara let go; he hadn’t expected that intense a reaction. “Any time,” he said, as Linksano gathered up the boxes.

Linksano smiled wistfully, tapped his wristband, and teleported out, arms full of games and memories.


End file.
